Lawmaker believes US military aid to Ukraine will undermine Minsk accords

Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko announced earlier that the US Senate had approved allocation of $500 mln to support Ukraine’s defense and security

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MOSCOW, September 19. /TASS/. The US military support of Ukraine will undermine the execution of the Minsk accords and provoke further destabilization in Donbass, Chairman of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs Leonid Slutsky told TASS in a telephone conversation in New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly session within the Russian delegation.

"Allocation of funds by the US for military help to Ukraine, all the more in such amounts as mentioned by [Ukraine’s President Pyotr] Poroshenko, will hardly contribute to peace settlement in Donbass," the member of parliament stressed. This position, he said, "shows once again that neither the current Kiev authorities, nor America, that would benefit from supporting a bloody conflict along the Russian borders activated, need peace in Ukraine."

"All of this is aimed at undermining the Minsk accords, further destabilization in southeast Ukraine and has nothing to do with protection of Ukrainian citizens hundreds of whom are dying in Donbass," the committee’s head concluded.

Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko wrote on Facebook on Tuesday that the US Senate had approved allocation of $ 500mln to support Ukraine’s defense and security. According to earlier reports, the Senate approved on Monday allocation of $ 150mln in military support (initially planned at up to $ 350mln) in the financial year of 2018. That said, the defense minister has the right to make free use of only $ 75mln. If more funds are needed, the Pentagon’s head and the Secretary of State will have to present a number of reports to the Congress.